Maud got here in the evening, stopped in the doorway, and said, We have to go to the roof right now, there is something crazy going on. Up four flights we opened the roof door to a chilly wind. West, beyond the low brownstones, over the Hudson River, the sun was a massive blazing orange round. Manhattan shone. Here and there windows caught the sunset and turned into sheets of gold, seemingly suspended. Clouds speeding by the sun were pink, pink, pink like never before, delicate blushes turning into electric shades. It was wild, psychedelic, hallucinatory. After a while the sky started to look like an extension of land. Clouds morphed into coastland and mountains. Stretches of evening blue turned into sea.

Eventually the sun dissolved. In the nippy air, I danced from one foot to the other in my thin T-shirt. Back downstairs, it was warm and smelled of lamb and allspice and orange zest.

Then India came by with a large enamel pan of semolina cake. She told me like three times what the thing was called, but somehow the name refuses to stick. I can only hear “baboushka,” and I know that’s not it. In any case, it was golden and thick with syrup and had sliced almonds on top, and some of us had three slices of it with chrysanthemum jasmine tea, after dinner, while we watched “Blazing Saddles.” If you haven’t seen this miracle of filmmaking, you must run, do not walk, and rent it immediately. It is the kind of thing where, if you try to just dash upstairs to the kitchen get some more hot water for tea, India and Maud will insist on pausing the DVD because you cannot miss a single moment. It is lunacy on a whole ’nother level. In fact, it is lunacy spread out on maybe four levels. There is a chance you will chortle and snort, very loudly, through it. That will only enhance the experience. When we got to the end of the movie, we started to watch it again. Then we stopped, and went upstairs instead to pick at leftover salad and cheese.

There is baboushka still, for a teatime treat tomorrow.